Stephano Ghisolfi Tries Alphane V17
In new video, Ghisolfi meets up with Shawn Raboutou to attempt the moves on one of the hardest problems in the world
Italian Stefano Ghisolfi is one of the best sport climbers in the world, repeating 5.15c (9b+) and putting up 5.15b (9b) first ascents, but he’s not particularly known for his bouldering. He’s still no slouch at the discipline, climbing multiple V14’s. In a newly released video, Ghisolfi meets up with some of the best boulderers in the world to try out problems in Chironico, Switzerland.
After getting some beta from Shawn Raboutou, Ghisolfi jumps on Alphane V17, Raboutou’s first ascent from earlier this year. Ghisolfi makes progress on individual moves but linking them together is another thing. He states his interest in coming back next year to work the project.
Raboutou has some interesting notes about the problem: “Alphane is a pretty weird line. It’s pretty long for a boulder so there’s a lot of moves and none of the holds are very bad but it’s very positional and it’s transitioning between movements that’s hard. When I first started trying it, I could do all the moves in a lot of different ways but it was really hard to find the beta and method to link all the moves.” In Ghisolfi’s video, you can see Raboutou projecting a right exit variation of Alphane.
Ghisolfi is a sport climbing wizard. He has climbed three 5.15c’s: Perfecto Mundo in Margalef, Change in Flatanger, and Bibliographie in Céüse. Originally graded 5.15d (9c) by Alex Megos, Ghisolfi downgraded Bibliographie to 5.15c. In 2022, he repeated Adam Ondra’s Move 5.15b, and put up two 5.15b’s of his own in Italy, The Lonely Mountain and L’arenauta.
Ghisolfi’s bouldering stoke was lit by his day in Chironico. This month he visited Bishop, his first bouldering trip since 2016, sending Direction V13 and Goldfish Trombone V14. It looks like we can expect more hard bouldering sends from him in the future.
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